Airport disaster drill

Will be present at an upcoming Caribbean international airport’s disaster drill, soon. I have attended a few of these over the years and thoroughly enjoy them. One has the opportunity to observe national level emergency responders under pressure. An education in itself. Most actors happily answer questions posed.

Each drill involves a different, but likely scenario. A plane crash, an explosion, terrorist attack, hazardous material spill etc. The first responders arrive and go to work immediately, after the initial phase, and the area is secured, then secondary and tertiary responders do their part. All actors strive for seamless operation between agencies, but naturally, there are always a few snags.
Agencies involved are fire fighters, police, military, intelligence, medical, airports authorities, disaster preparedness specialists, safety specialists, hospitals, civil aviation authorities, ambulance services, helicopter services, relevant government ministries, communications, customs, immigration and sundry observers, volunteers (victims etc) and evaluators.

An incident management post is established, with each agency involved having at least two representatives; a supervisor and a scribe. They report to their respective superiors at the command centre, which is staffed with one higher-level supervisor/manager along with one scribe per agency. All agencies report their intel to the command centre. A single person, usually the airport operations manager, coordinates this centre with advice from the various agencies represented.

The drill lasts about 3-4 hours, but the preparations begin almost two months before. The airport involved is shut down for the duration of the drill. There is a post-drill evaluation, with lessons learned shared.
The result of the evaluation bears weight in the decision of the ACI as to which category status to issue to that particular airport. The category status has ramifications for insurance rates, airlines that will/will not land there etc.

- Trini Funshooter

State game licenses in the bag

Got the necessary state game licenses this morning. Forestry division has got to computerize its’ operations. Hand writing every single application and license is archaic, labour-intensive, frustrating–to applicant and issuer alike-and a waste of time, energy, skill, paper and human resources. It is probably mind numbing to the employees of the division.


ON EMERGENCY RESPONDERS LIST

A major helicopter company called me today, confirming that my name would be placed on their list of responders in the event of an aviation disaster. Naturally I’m thrilled, but wish them a perfect safety record. I’m only on the secondary responders list, but that’s good enough. Having worked on four international airport disaster drills has helped prep me. I have also been called out to the scenes of numerous vehicular accidents, shootings and violent protests. Many involved fatalities.

Now if only I could convince them to provide me with an entire safety kit…

MISS UNIVERSE 1998

Saw Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam at a function today. She is even more beautiful than when she won in 1998. One hopes that she has the ‘beauty longevity’ of Janelle ‘Penny’ Commissiong and Giselle La Ronde-West.


TSTT dialup too slow

Not posting as frequently as necessary, as TSTT dialup has been so slow recently, that some sites are not accessible. Awaiting a modem for the Blink broadband service. The TSTT rep said there’d be as much as a one month wait. We’ll see how that works out.

TSTT is owned by Cable & Wireless, GORTT and individual shareholders (through NEL). Bashing TSTT is no good for any citizen, as we all have a vested interest in making the entity successful. They’ve also got a rough deal because of TATT’s insistence that the ‘playing field be level’. Apparently TATT has made TSTT’s accommodations with respect to Digicel so onerous that the field is not level, but tilted in Digicel’s favour. You can do your own research on that. There’s also talk of a former TSTT manager who was asked to leave the company and is now a very senior TATT exec with an axe to grind.

- Trini Funshooter